Termite Occurrence And Damage Assessment In Urban Trees From Different Parks Of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan Muhammad Afzal ( [email protected] ) Quaid-i-Azam University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9976-9239 Khalid Zamir Rasib University of Lahore - Defence Road Campus: The University of Lahore - New Campus Research Article Keywords: Termite infestation, Lahore plantations, Ecological services, Tree damage, Tree-termite interactions Posted Date: June 3rd, 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-497815/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Page 1/20 Abstract Termite infestation is one of the fundamental problems associated with the loss of urban trees and ecological services. However, no such study has been performed in Pakistan to investigate the termite occurrence and assess such damages to urban trees caused by termites. For Lahore, research and comparable data on urban tree damages are rare or missing. This study surveyed six different microhabitats, including Bagh-e-Jinnah, Canal vegetation, Model Town Park, Jallo forestry, Race-course Park, and F.C. College vegetation employing three belt transects (100×5 m) method. We geo-referenced termite infested trees to investigate the termite occurrence on living and dead standing trees, termite diversity and assess the tree damage by termites' attack. We recorded four termite species (Odontotermes obesus, Coptotermes heimi, Heterotermes indicola, and Microtermes obesi) representing two families (Rhinotermitidae and Termitidae). However, the diversity indices result revealed that O. obesus (higher termite) and C. heimi (lower termite) were dominant and key species with 46.60 and 36% of occurrence among observed trees, respectively. Kernel density function indicated that the Lahore Canal and Bagh-e-Jinnah plantation shared all four termites' infestation evenly compared to other study sites. We observed the maximum number of damaged trees by termites in canal plantations with the most damaged exotic tree species Populus euramericana along the canal green belt. Additionally, we observed signicant (P < 0.05) termite-tree interactions with exotic, living, and dead standing tree species and found termite colony size positively (R = 0.985) correlated with the tree trunk diameter up to breast height DBH. The average population of termites per unit volume of deadwood log was (0.39/cm3) within all plantations-sites. In conclusion, this study provides simple, reckless, and inexpensive knowledge about the assessment of termite damage of trees, which may give a better idea in making decisions on tree selection and management in urban ecosystems. Introduction In the urban environment, trees are usually considered a crucial and desirable part of landscape development. The exponential growth of the urban population has created an alarming situation for urban plantation to deliver ecological services critical to humans and biodiversity's wellbeing. Ecological services are much important in terms of environment and categorized as regulating (e.g., microclimate & nutrients, seizing carbon, eliminating airborne pollutants and green infrastructure), cultural (e.g., recreational, spiritual, historical, and tourism), provisioning (e.g., food, water, and ber) and supporting (e.g., pollination & soil formation) (Endreny, 2018). Urban forestry is dened as "the inclusive trees canopy across the metropolitan areas comprised on individual trees, fauna and forest covers located in public or private properties including parks, open spaces, canal banks, streets residential areas and alongside the roads" (Wolf & Kruger, 2010; Zorzenon & Campos, 2015). Urban parks are generally open space areas reserved for public recreation in cities dominated by the tree canopy and water resources. The federal government has been planning and managing urban vegetation in Pakistan; however, cities still endure unwitting projects such as imprecise selection for plant species that results in several ecological problems. These concerns may range from simple pest infestation to whole tree falling on the roads, streets, and open spaces, causing accidents with a variable level of penalties (Zorzenon & De, 2014). Besides, such a problem can lead to loss of tree canopy and associated impacts on groundwater level, heating/cooling costs, and quality of human life (U.S. Forest Service https://www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/invasive-species). Since the symptoms and signs of tree defects, especially termite infestations, are not considered or identied correctly. It may be due to monitoring and assessing the risks associated with tree health and status that have not received feasible consideration in developing countries. Three major concerns related to tree damage assessment include fostering tree longevity by predicting and preventing structure failure and public and onsite workers' safety (Karlinasari et al., 2018). Visual Tree Assessment (VTA) has Page 2/20 been developed as a principal method by Mattheck and Breloer to assess the risks associated with tree status (Mattheck & Breloer, 1994). Subterranean termites' infestation in urban trees is common and causes some trees to fall (Zorzenon & Campos, 2015). Subterranean termites feed approximately all brous material types because of their wide range of feeding preferences (Rasib et al., 2014; Afzal et al., 2017). Termites' incidence of landscape trees is increasing year by year in the urban environment of Pakistan. Approximately 52 termites’ species occur throughout the four provinces of Pakistan (Akhtar, 1974). In the largest province, Punjab, various kinds of severe termite attacks on urban trees have been observed in the last few decades of climate change events. Lahore is the capital city of the province of Punjab and was known as the garden city but, now going through a severe environmental crisis due to overpopulation, unsustainable development projects and climate change issues (W.W.F., Pakistan). In this situation, termite incidence and damage assessment on trees of green belts and parks of Lahore is too critical in order to save the horticulture as well as nature biodiversity management. Only one study was reported the survey of termite infested houses, indigenous building materials and construction techniques in Pakistan by Manzoor and Mir (2010). However, this survey was just including 185 houses from different regions of Punjab and did not include urban and landscape forestry for termite infestation. To understand the infestation by subterranean termites in urban trees of Lahore, Pakistan, this study was aimed four major objectives to obtain basic information to support upright urban trees management in six major microhabitats i.e., Bagh-e-Jinnah (Lawrence Garden), Canal vegetation, Race-course Park, Model Town Park, Jallo forestry and F.C. College botanical garden, i) to register the termite species occurrence and frequency of termite damage to living and dead tree species in studied area, ii) to assess the urban tree damage by termites and termite feeding preferences, iii) to infer correlation between termite richness (n) and diameter of infested tree upto breast height (DBH), iv) to determine the effect of tree species type (native and exotic), tree status (living and dead), and DBH on the termites infestation. Materials And Methods Study Sites and Termite Sampling We selected the study area based on the dense tree canopy and history of tree damage by the Parks and Horticulture Authority, Lahore, Pakistan. Study-sites were included parks and vegetation named F.C. College botanical garden (0.75 km2), Canal vegetation (60 km2), Jallo Park (1.75 km2), Bagh-e-Jinnah (0.57 km2), Model Town Park (0.51 km2), and Race-course vegetation (0.36 km2) are located in the metropolitan areas of Lahore, Punjab Pakistan (31.520418° N, 74.35871° E) as shown in Fig. 1. These study-sites parks/vegetations are considered the primary biodiversity hotspots in the thickly populated city comprising various evergreen and seasonal wood tree species. Surveys were carried out for each month of 2019-2020 (from one rainy season to the next rainy season) for subterranean termite collection, diversity, and tree damage assessment attacked by termites. In each of the six study sites, three consistent transects of tree belts (100 × 5 m) were conducted and used the distance of 100 m between each transect (Dahlsjö et al., 2020). The collection of termites' specimens was made in each transect from the base of infested living trees, mud tubes, termite mounds, and dead logs by breaching and handpicking using soft forceps. We preserved the collected termite samples in 70% ethanol for morphological identication using a taxonomic key for termite soldiers by Akhtar (1983). We used a mobile app (Soviet Military Maps) to classify the study area's geographic locations, elevations, and termite-infested tree locations. Plants species from each survey area were registered, identied, and clustered into two major groups as "native" and "exotic" tree species with the guidance by respective park gardener & botanist. The relationship between termite colony size and diameter of a tree trunk up to breast height (DBH) was assessed by Spearman rank correlation at a signicance level of p<0.05 (McDonald, 2014). Page 3/20 Termite Damage Assessment This study determined the tree damage in living and dead standing trees from each sampling sites by Visual Tree Assessment (VTA) using American Wood Protection Authority (AWPA E21-17) visual rating scale and